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In Reply to: Use a pocket pc with VGA resolution, and NetRemote posted by Christine Tham on February 1, 2007 at 12:45:35:
Thanks Christine.I'll look at NetRemote and Global Cache.
Haven't seen reports on WinAmp - most people seem to talk about Foobar although I've seen lots of reports on people liking iTunes which I kind of like since my wife and kids are familiar with the interface and we have ipods etc. What counts for me is sound quality - I have seen people saying there are differences in audio quality between various media playback software programs although this doesn't seem to make sense to me if I am outputting a digital stream over USB to the DAC.
So I guess a related question for me besides the original UMPC interface question is whether there's any reason to opt for playback through one audio media player or another in terms of sound quality if I am going out through USB to a DAC.
As to the use of a PDA versus the UMPC I gotta say I just like the bigger screen and the wider range of possibilities from a UMPC. I haven't really been thrilled by the squished in look of screenshots I've seen of people controlling their mediaservers over a PDA. The integrated IR emitter capabilities of a PDA are kind of nice though....which that was included in the interface capabilities of the UMPCs on the market.
Follow Ups:
Using native drivers is a mistake IMO. The USB driver is the one thing that makes the biggest difference in SQ IMO, followed by the converter chip that is used and finally ASIO. My customers agree with me on this as well. Good drivers are available from M-Audio, Edirol and even Creative.
"Good drivers are available from M-Audio, Edirol and even Creative."If one is using a USB cable into a USB Dac, is there a simple/cheap means of installing drivers from one of the above companies on one's PC? Are these free downloads, or are these drivers made available only through purchase of the hardware?
These are free downloads, however each one is custom-written for the particular converter. They are not generic.
so I suspect that one's usb implementation must include say an edirol or m-audio usb converter to pair up with the custom drivers. In my case, I'll be using a pcm2707 receiver to convert to i2s so I guess my pc-based usb driver options are generic. In following this board, I've read so many Qs and mixed feedback on the universe of pc based usb drivers (concerning which to use) that I may reconsider going the mac mini route.
Evidently you can write drivers for the 270X chips, but I'm not a S/W hack, so I know little about it..... I much prefer the sound of the TAS1020A and TUSB3200 chips anyway.
from what I read you have reason to be proud of your spoiler dac. Thanks for the replies to my Qs
*** Using native drivers is a mistake IMO. ***Can I confirm that in the above sentence what you refer to as a "native driver" is the generic USB audio driver that is included with Windows XP?
If so, that is highly confusing. Microsoft themselves never refer to their generic drivers as "native" drivers.
"Native driver" usually means the driver that is provided by the manufacturer, in other words "native" to the hardware. Usually, this is a completely different driver from the "generic" one supplied by Microsoft.
So, for example, when I mentioned "native ASIO driver" I meant the driver provided by the manufacturer that talks to the hardware, and not a "shim" like ASIO4ALL or ASIO2KS. There is no other possible interpretation, because there is no such thing as "generic ASIO drivers" in Windows - ASIO is not a specification invented by Microsoft, and is completely unsupported by them.
Native to Windows I meant.
"Native to Windows" is an oxymoron, and highly confusing. The Microsoft written generic drivers are not treated any differently in the operating system compared to third party drivers.If you mean "bundled with Windows", then the use of the word "native" is still confusing, because Windows XP ships with lots of drivers, some written by Microsoft, but a lot aren't. And USB2 drivers didn't originally ship with Windows - i think they came later in a service pack.
Although I agree with you Christine, I just happened to come across this on the Creative website. From their Windows Vista FAQ page, the question is:"What are native drivers?"
And their answer:
"Native drivers are a set of software files that come with the Microsoft operating system. These allow the operating system to recognize and control the functionality of a device. Windows Vista™ includes native operating system support for some Creative products while others will require you to acquire drivers from Creative."
.
... the Creative drivers that ship with Vista are written by Creative, not Microsoft, so they *are* in fact "native" and not generic :-)Creative seems to be interpreting "native" as "bundled with Windows" as opposed to who wrote the driver and/or whether it is generic or hardware-specific.
Native is generally understood as "pre-existing", such as the Native Americans on the north American continent. This would make the term "Native" appropriate for all of the drivers that come with Windows. Websters calls it "indigenous", "inborn", "characteristic of orginal inhabitants".
USB2 drivers did not originally ship with Windows XP. Therefore, they are not "native" in the sense of "pre-existing".Anyway, I thought your original point was about generic vs specific drivers? That has nothing to do with whether those drivers ship with Windows or not.
My advice to you: try and avoid using terminology like "native" (which create confusion) and use terms like "generic" vs "manufacturer supplied" or "hardware-specific".
I've used both WinAmp and Foobar (as well as microsoft media player). In terms of sound, they are very close, but WinAmp seems to sound just a little bit nicer, but don't know if it's my imagination. This is using the ASIO output on both, and native ASIO drivers, and zero additional processing.Other people on this forum have reported similar experiences - generally WinAmp seems to sound slightly better than Foobar, all else being equal (most people, and i would concur, describe it as a bit warmer and more appealing). I know - it's easy to be skeptical on this, but hey some of us used to think all digital players sound the same because bits are just bits right? :-)
The main advantage of using WinAmp however is that you can control it using any web browser (via BrowseAmp or AJAXAmp), whereas I haven't really seen anything as slick on Foobar (yes, there is a http interface, but won't allow you to select playlists and browse music). And there are BrowseAmp skins optimized for the low resolution of Pocket PCs (but since I have a VGA device, this is not really an issue). WinAmp is also better generally in terms of plugins to interface to an LCD/VFD display and supporting input via IR remote controls (my digital music player is completely headless - no keyboard, mouse, monitor).
In terms of remote controls, I'm actually given everything up and now mainly twiddling the knobs on the front panel (laugh), plus using the original remote controls. Don't ask - it's a long story. Part of the problem is that more than half of my components (turntable, SACD player, pre amp, power amp x 5) have hard power switches (ie. i can't turn them on or off using a remote control) so the usefulnes of a universal remote control is marginal (most of the time i am only controlling one device so i might as well grab the original remote control).
But NetRemote was a pretty good option - I had a really nice skin for it which controlled everything, and enough macros to make it useful (I even had one that will switch between DVD-Audio and DVD-Video content on a disc, by navigating into the setup menu of my player!). I might consider it again one day, but probably with Global Cache (the IR transmitter on my pocket pc is a bit weak). Global Cache with RS-232 to my surround processor and projector (the two most problematic devices in my setup) plus IR for everything else would work I think, except it would result in too many cables running around everywhere (and no obvious place to hide the global cache device so that it's not obtrusive!).
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